


No Word For Friend

by Shaleene



Series: Darrek Cousland [3]
Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-13
Updated: 2014-01-13
Packaged: 2018-01-08 14:00:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1133468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shaleene/pseuds/Shaleene
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Contest piece for a contest on DevArt "best friends"</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Word For Friend

Darrek had spotted the sword the moment he entered the house. It wasn't an overly ornate thing, no gems or special trinkets glued to it for effect. The blade, bound to the handle by thick braided leather, was made of the finest steel he had ever laid eyes on. The quality of the weapon rivaled the mastery of any Highever or dwarven blacksmith he'd ever seen. As he looked closer he could see the flaws in the blade. It was an old weapon, had seen more then it's fair share of battle. Each scratch, every nick, told the story of a long history of war in far away lands he had never traveled.

 

“Give me that blade.” He said to the dwarf who was watching him with a suspicious eye. Darrek's eyes stayed on the blade. He knew the sword as if it were his own. He had never actually seen the weapon before. Never seen a weapon of it's like. Such a thing would have been unwieldy anyway. It was a good seven and a half feet at least, maybe more and no doubt weighed twice what his warhound Talon weighed.

 

“Why should I?” The dwarf asked, crossing his arms over his puffed out chest. “That there cost me a small fortune. Besides you couldn't wield that if you tried.”  
  
Darrek looked down at the dwarf, his eyes hard and dark as the storm clouds over Kocari. “ _< Because if you don't,_>” Darrek growled in the dwarf's own language. “< _I will remove your head and mount it on a spike as an example of what happens when you steal from the Northern Giants._ >” The shift in the dwarf's gaze told Darrek he would get what he wanted.

 

..~~..

 

“T'was a foolish thing, Warden.” Morrigan said as she put too much pressure against a particularly large gash on the warrior's shoulder. She smiled when he let out a small hiss before he could bite it off. “He is nearly twice your size.”  
  
“Size matters little in a fight.” Darrek said as he shifted uncomfortably. He could feel the ribs on his left side, at least three broken and the rest bruised because of a rather hard blow from a very large sword. A sword he himself had taken off the hands of a rather ungrateful dwarf.

 

“I do not see your opponent crawling to a healer.”

 

“He will when the adrenaline wears off. Besides it's just a few scratches.”

 

“Five broken ribs, a fractured arm, lacerations to..”  
  
“OK. Point taken.” Darrek sighed impatiently. “But I run from no battle, nor will I have my Ancestors disrespected. She was a powerful, strong warrior. A Paragon in her time. She should be respected as such.”

 

“ _The charred reminence of a dead woman_ is hardly disrespectful when t'is true. Perhaps the trash bin remark was a little out there. But none the less....” She stopped, smirking when Darrek turned a hard gaze on her. “We can not have you bleeding to death on some mountain over hurt feelings.” She finally finished.  
  
“That's what I have you for, swamp witch.” Darrek's lips twitched in a small sideways grin when Morrigan slapped him hard on the back of his head.

 

~~..~~

 

“We need to talk.” Wynn said one night as she took a seat next to Darrek beside the fire. “I have issues with some of the things you have been doing lately.”

 

Darrek gave a grunt as he ran his whet stone along the edge of his blade. The runes of his father, mother, and brother etched carefully down it's length. He had done it himself, sitting just outside Morrigan's tent each night for a week straight thanks to the unusually bad nightmares that had haunted him. Just under the laurel at the base of the hilt was a rune he created for Oren. He had only been seven, too young to have a mark of his own. Darrek liked to think he would have grown to be a great warrior, training under Darrek and becoming an Ash Warrior of the Southern Clans. Darrek would have given the boy his face tattoos personally, just as his trainer had done to him.

 

“Are you even listening?” Wynn huffed.

 

Darrek grunted in the affirmative, though both probably knew it was a lie. He he knew what she was whining about anyway. It had been the same thing over and over again. “ _You must represent the Wardens with dignity and respect. You are here to serve the people and must make a good example.”_ So on and so forth. It reminded him of the maids that worked the laundry, talking at great lengths about legends and folk tales. Those stories were always too romantic for his blood, half truths and made up glamour to hide the darker, truer side of war.

 

“The Wardens symbolize all that is good in this world, young Cousland.” Wynn said which caused even Sten to grunt his displeasure at the prospect. Even in Seharon he knew the Wardens would burn villages to save cities. Slaughter innocents to spare them the tortures that awaited them. He had seen Darrek himself do such a thing once. “AND YOU MUST.....” She began speaking louder while glaring at the larger of the two warriors.

 

“Chantry slave... I mean circle Mage.” Morrigan said with no little amount of distaste in her words. She wasn't grabbing her attention because of Darrek, she knew well enough he could block the old woman out as easily as he could sever an arm from a hurlok. More then likely it was because she was tired of listening to the elder mage drone on and on about things she didn't understand. “I believe Jowan is in need of medical treatment. Seems he might have slit his hand open... By accident I am sure.”

 

Wynn’s eyes grew wide and angry at the thought. Darrek completely forgotten as she jumped up and hurried over to where Jowan was sitting with the dwarves. No doubt humoring their requests for dancing fire and sticks turned to ice. A useless waste of energy, but if it kept them out of his way all the better.

 

It was another four or five hours before the last of the group had retired to their tents or their posts. Zevran and Oghren had first watch. He knew the assassin was close, sitting silent high in some tree. He knew because he could feel the gaze on him, like a whispering breeze passing across the back of his neck. Oghren was easier to track, heavy metal boots crunching on frozen ground as he patrolled with Talon.

 

Darrek and Sten finished working on their blades at roughly the same time, each man setting their weapons aside and repacking their tools. The pile of worn leather strips they had removed and replaced would no doubt be re-purposed by Bohdan. Extra bindings for his wagon, or ties to keep their supplies from sliding when the horse spooked. Darrek glanced down at their blades. Clean steel catching the firelight in such a way. Three blades one twice the length of the other two.

 

“ _This is Asala.” Sten had said, dropping the large hammer had had been using to drive large stakes in the ground. He reached out and took the blade slowly, hesitating only slightly before grabbing it, as if afraid the thing was nothing more then an illusion. “This here,” He said running a finger over the large nick near the tip of the blade. “This is from a blight ogre. The last I had seen it.” Sten lowered the weapon and looked at Darrek, something in his eyes only another warrior could recognize. Darrek only nodded before turning back toward the blacksmith. There was still much to do._

 

The two warriors sat for a long time, staring into the fire or up at the starless sky. The nights had grown colder, the sky darker with each passing day. The more of Ferelden they lost to the darkspawn, the darker the world seemed to get. It had been more then a year since the fall of Ostagar. More then a year since the land had seen spring or summer. The seers had called it the endless winter. A winter without out the stars. A winter when the day hours would eventually become dark as the night. Darrek looked up the the dark sky again. “ _Always right about the worst things.”_ He thought to himself. “ _It is easy to predict what already happened._ His father had told him in his youth. _“The fall and rise of power, cities, empires. They happen all the time. I could predict that one day it will happen again. But a seer can never tell you when or where or who. Easier to say one day Highever will fall and leave it at that then to say when and how. Or who will build upon the ashes. It is how they stay in business. They remain vague, mentioning only what has happened by pretending to read stones and paper.”_

 

It was all moot now. The seers had been 'right' and the ports were clogged with people fleeing their homes. Morrigan had to talk both Sten and Darrek down the first time they had reached a port city. So many fleeing, so few staying to fight. _“Your countrymen flee when they should fight!”_ Sten said angrily, hands gripping his Asala tightly. _“We should take their heads and mount them on the walls. Make examples of those who run like frightened dogs.”_ Darrek had agreed. Luckily for them, Morrigan was a bit more level headed.

 

A twig snapped somewhere behind them, and both warriors reached for their weapons. It wasn't to defend themselves, they knew better then to think they were being attacked. It was an elf dropping noisily out of the tree near the end of his watch. It was time for the warriors to take up their posts. Second watch was always theirs. Darrek hated sleeping, and Sten didn't trust anyone else to be awake and alert enough to back up the Ash Warrior should the worst happen.

 

“Sten.” Darrek said before turning and heading toward one end of the camp.

 

“Kadaan.” Sten replied, heading for the other.

 

..~~..

 

Sten stood at the docks watching as the ship that would take him toward home was preparing for launch. He had the answer he had been sent to find, along with so many more. The humans were a chaotic race. A race that needed order whether willingly or by force. But they were a young race as well, like the little ones of the Qun that had yet to feel the biting end of a whip against their backs. Like the children of his people, these humans would have to learn the hard way.

 

Darrek came up beside him, hair the color of blood caught in the early northern winds. It was this one thing that would keep Ferelden safe, at least for the next ten or so years. This warrior and the Ash Warrior clans of the southern wilds was the wall that stood between this country and the might of the Qun. Had it been any other who claimed Ferelden's throne, it would have been much different. He knew little of the clans except that it was their teachings that Darrek followed. If any of them were half the man Cousland was, perhaps the country had a future after all. He only hoped he would be alive to find out. To march against a country of such men would be a great battle indeed.

 

They stood there for over an hour like two statues carved from different stone, watching as the dock hands finished loading supplies. The captain began yelling orders to his crew signaling the time for Sten to board the ship. It was to take him to Rivain and from there a ship would take him back to Seharon. The return home would be bitter sweet as the humans said, knowing he may never see his old companions again.

 

“Farewell Kadaan.” Sten said as he turned toward Darrek extending one hand. He glanced at the human's neck, a mark on the side he had put there himself. It would be the last time he would ever see such a mark on a human. It was a mark of respect given only to those who had proven their worth. Any Qunari who saw it would know the man baring it demanded the same respect they would give their own Arishok. No human he knew had ever received such a mark, and in his life no human ever would again.

 

“Goodbye, my Brother.” Darrek said grabbing Sten's forearm tight as was tradition in Ferelden. They held eachothers wrists for a long moment before letting go at the same time. Sten turned away and boarded his ship as Darrek turned and headed back to the palace. Both warriors returning to their armies to ready them for their next great war.  


End file.
